Laker graduate enjoying medical school in Poland

Published 2:53 pm, Friday, April 22, 2016

POZNAN, Poland — Choosing a college to attend is a major life decision for any high school student. To make this decision, students often look to the future to figure out where they want to be.

Stefani Terry, like other students, eyed the future, but she also considered the past when deciding where to attend college. She reflected on her family roots.

Terry, a 2006 Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker High School graduate, is attending Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poznan, Poland. Her great-grandparents were Poland natives.

“My grandmother knew about the university and told me about it when I was thinking about studying medicine,” she said. “I decided to look into it more.”

Terry contacted the university’s office in New York and received information.

“What really struck my interest was the six-year M.D. program,” she said. “There are no undergraduate requirements. Not only would going to Poznan University cut off two years (from my schooling), I also was looking forward to seeing more of Europe.”

According to the school’s website, the university began in 1919 and is the top-rated school in Poland. It offers medical, dentistry and pharmacy programs. About 4,000 to 5,000 students attend the university each year, and they take part in theoretical, practical and clinical activities in five modern university clinical hospitals.

In recent years, Poznan University of Medical Sciences has conducted research and developed collaborative projects with many leading universities in Europe and the U.S.

An education in medicine,

history and culture

Terry is in her fourth year of the medical program. The list of classes she’s currently taking would make many people’s heads swim. The list includes rheumatology, cardiology, pharmacology, toxicology, pediatrics, general, traumatic and cardiac surgery, psychiatry, radiology and more.

She said unlike other universities, Poznan University does not have students sign up for classes. The university sets the schedule for all students annually.

All of Terry’s classes are in English.

“The program I am in is specifically designed for foreign students,” she said.

While many people in Poland speak English, there still are some language barrier difficulties, she noted.

“Sometimes it’s hard to understand the professors because of the accent, but you get used to it,” she said.

Terry said Poznan University of Medical Sciences doesn’t really have a campus, as classes are conducted in buildings throughout the city.

While she’s learning plenty about medical sciences, one thing about Poznan University that she’s enjoying the most is history.

“Poznan was once the capitol of Prussia. Also, most of the city was destroyed during World War II, but everything was rebuilt as it was before the war,” she said.

Terry also enjoys attending classes with students from various countries. She said most of the student body can be divided into three main groups, based on their native country: North America, Taiwan and Norway. The rest of the student body includes students from all over the world, she said.

“It’s really interesting,” she said. “It’s nice to experience other people’s way of life. It’s really opened my eyes.”

She said the students have many different religions, but there’s never been a problem.

“Everyone respects each other’s beliefs,” she said.

Terry said because she’s surrounded by various cultures, she’s tasted many types of food she may not have tried otherwise.

Learning through touring

For Terry, another bonus of attending college in Poland has been visiting many places in Europe. So far, she’s traveled to London, Paris, Rome, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Pompeii, Naples, Venice, Lucerne, Frankfurt, Berlin, Fussen, Munich, Prague, Vienna and Budapest, among other locations.

“I would love to go to Greece and Sweden sometime,” she noted.

Terry said she really enjoyed Lucerne because it’s near the Alps and the people were very friendly. She also liked Budapest because of the people and many things were inexpensive.

She also has been to various places in Poland, such as Warsaw, Krakow, Zakopane and Auschwitz.

“It was quite the experience when I toured Auschwitz,” she said. “Being there was very different then reading or watching videos of the history of the place.”

She said some of her travels were with friends from high school.

“My friend Bo Wisneski came to visit me during my first year,” she said. “Khristina Heck came during my second year. While she was here, we spent some time in Rome.”

Terry said she also was able to travel with Rex Huang of Taiwan, who was a foreign exchange student at Lakers while Terry was a student. They had kept in touch over the years, and he was studying in Germany when Terry traveled with him.

Hands-on summer schooling

In addition to classes, the university requires its students to do a month of training each summer to prepare them for the coming year. The training is for seven hours a day, five days a week.

After Terry’s first year at the university, she came back to Huron County and did clinical observation at Courtney Manor in Bad Axe.

“I was required to learn basic nursing skills,” she said. “I helped the nurses with basic care, such as feeding, helping people up to the bathroom, checking glucose levels and giving insulin. I also was able to observe the distribution of the medication by the nurses.”

For another clinical observation, Terry went to a cancer clinic in Houston, Texas.

“That was quite an interesting experience,” she said. “The clinic there uses unconventional treatment for cancer. They use normal cancer drugs, but for different purposes. The most impressive case they had was of a man who had prostate cancer. They tested his blood for any known overexpressed oncogenes, which are genes that cause cancer, and found that his HER2/NEU gene was overexpressed. That gene is common for breast cancer, and so they used a breast cancer drug that targets that gene. He is now in remission.”

She said while at the cancer clinic, she followed each doctor who worked there. She learned to read PET/CT scans, which shows if a cancer tumor is active.

Terry also spent some time at the Harbor Beach Community Hospital, where she followed emergency room doctors and spent time in the operating room.

She said at the beginning of last summer, she went on rounds at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit.

“I was going to do my month of training there, but my housing plans fell through,” she said.

Terry said in each of her clinical observations, she learned very valuable skills.

“From Courtney Manor, I learned how to take blood pressure, how insulin shots are administered, and I learned about different drug interactions,” she said. “When I was in Houston, I learned so much about oncology, it’s hard to list. It’s also a research center, so it was very interesting to me. They taught me how to take the patients’ history and about some abnormal findings on physical exams.”

She said at the Harbor Beach hospital, she learned how to look at ultrasounds, how to do different stitches, and about the operating room.

“The summer training is a real help,” she said. “(Within the first two weeks of class), we already covered many of the things I’ve learned (in clinical observations).”

Terry said during her clinical observations, she informed the medical professionals of where she was attending medical school.

“They were very impressed,” she said. “They were so positive and supportive. It also was nice to see how things work in the clinical setting, rather than just reading from a medical book.”

She said she’s not sure where her next clinical observation will be.

Life after Poznan University

When she graduates from Poznan University, Terry plans to return to the U.S. She said she’s not sure what area of medicine she wants to enter.

“I was thinking orthopedic surgery, but I know it’s extremely hard to get into,” she said.

Regardless of what she ends up doing, Terry feels she will be ready.

“I believe I am just as prepared here than I would be in any U.S. university,” she said.